The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-12-03

ANNAti, OSANu kNNNhhN ANANtC NAtS sNN" York Academy ot Sciences, says the dignitied New York SttR, in & Colum- bia college class room, as follows;
 Eeny. meney, miney. mo,
 Catch niGger by the toe
 II hc hollefs let him go,
 Eeny, meney, mtney, mo,
 One cry, two-ery riekery, Ean,
 WickAho, WockAhO,
 Crickabo. cruckaho.
 Tillery tan.
 Battery, nentery, koutery kal,
 Apple seed aud apple sail,
 Wire hrier, hmber lock.
 Three geese in a hock.
 One dies east, ono nios west,
 And one hics over the cuckoo's nest
 Eenory. teenery, t,okery, teven.
 I'll go marry ten or eleven,
 Pm, rSn, musky Ian,
 Nineteen, twenty, twenty one,
 The dignitiei professor was Dr. II. Darlington Bolton, and his subject was "Thc Contingent Rhymes of Children. A Study in International Folk Lore" Dr. Bolton was formerly professor in Trinity college, Hart ford. He has just returned from n tour in Europe. He explained to the audience that thesc rhymes and many others which he had picked up in twenty languages were used by chii- dren in their games to determine who should have the most undesirable part A leader repeated the doggerel rhyme, and the child upon whom the last word fell was set free. Those remain ing went through the same ordeal un- til the last one remained. who was cit" This dit" Dr. Bolton said, Is a very polite expression in the games of English-speaking children, for in German the one who is ''it" k called n "wolf." instead of "it;" in Japanese, out, or little devil;" in MalaRasy bucca or "leper," and in Hawaiian, 'crazy one"
 Prof. Bolton said he had collected counting -out rhymes in twenty lan- guages half. and barbourous. Among these languages are the Penobscot, Indian, Japanese, Arabic. Turkish. Malagasy, Bulgarian, Armenian, Swedish, Italian, Russian, Portugesc, Spanish and Basque The Bulgarian child-rhymes, he said, were too pronounced for repetition, but he recited examples in dozen different languages. In Dutch he had collected fourteen counting out rhymes. in Ger man 269. and in English i5i. Alto gethcr, by corresponding with schol- ars in all parts of the world he had obtained S60 counting -out rhymes. One of the most common jingles h all languages was the familiar;
 One. two. buckle my shoe;
 Thrcc. four, shut the door,
 Five, six, pick up sticks,
 seven, eight, lay them straight, etc.
 There is n fund of curious allusions in the doggerel rhymes, Dr. Bolton continued. Here is one picked ur after the expedition of the Emperor Napoleon into Russia:
 The first lieutenant was neat
 lie stopped in battle to wash his feet.
 Another, which shows how ancient the batter k, is:
 Nebuchadnezzar, the King of the Jews slipped on his slippers and slipped on his
 shoes.
 A modern instance showing local coloring in the United States k: There was n httle rattiesnake.
 He ate too much of inc wedding cake.
 And made his little belly ache
 As to the origin of almost all the childrcn's doggerel, Dr. Bolton said he believed 1t descended from remote an- tiduity. The ancients were accns- toned to cast lots In the most solemn acts of life. It was considered All ap- peal to the Almighty. In the middle ] Lot I.I sx, a superstition, and charlatans used un- meaning formulas Q impose on the people, pretending to cure diseases and fo' coast the future. In the we'll known doggerel
 Eckery, ackery, ukery an, One-ery, two.ery, etc,
 the "eckery" Is sanskrit for "one." It is probable, Prof. Bolton said, that "ackery" was originally word also. There was only one correct Latin verse that Dr. Bolton could remcm- Der. It is:
 In hoe, Losaine. gnod. Ducks foot plump in the mud It is probable that the jinglcs that the children now use were formerly written on papers and hung around the necks of people in the middle ages ] to keep off the plague or to cure hy- drophobia, gout and rheumatism. i Children nowadays. however, are in- clined to improve on the old doggerel. Dr. Bolton had interviewed good many children in all languages, and found it difficult to understand them. COnsonaBts were not preserved and vowels were of no account to the chiI- dren. As an illustration of his diffi- culty, Dr. Bolton wrote this word on the blackboard PHTH -OLO-GN- YRRH.